Refresh Workarounds

[cleovii]

Hi everyone!

One of our customers currently has >50 Pro licenses. Eight refreshes a day isn't enough for what they need to do, but $5000/mo for a node just doesn't make sense for their business right now.

Has anyone here had success in increasing the number of refreshes available to them? I was wondering if this might be achievable by refreshing on Desktop against an on-prem data source that in turn would update, like through an Excel/SQL combination, and then publishing that online. That's super cumbersome, but... Is that still considered one of the eight refreshes?

Has anyone found any workarounds for this?

[cleovii]

I thought I would update my post with some of my own research for other visitors.

This post suggests DirectQuery as an option, as opposed to import. However, I know that DirectQuery is strongly recommended against by users of Power BI. Does anyone who has experience with DirectQuery have any insight? I imagine that complex machinations would be difficult to accomplish, and that the usage costs would spike tremendously.

[edhans]

Direct query shouldn't be recommended against, but you should know its advantages and disavantages.

Key disadvantages:

• Not all transformations in Power Query work. It isn't too difficult to get into complex transformations that can cause it to fail. Generally, if the action is supported by query folding, it works. If not, it gets iffy.
• You cannot enable bi-directional filtering in direct query models.
• There is effectively no date table, so you cannot use time intelligence.
• Unless it is a composite model, all tables must come from one source.
• 1M record limit.
• Some measures won't work. SUMX() works, AVERAGEX() doesn't. Have fun getting those error messages when using an unsupported function.
• If it is a large set of data, the report will appear very sluggish to your end users as every time they click and move around, it refreshes. 

You can read more here.

Generally, DQ is not a substitute for importing. Importing gives the richest development and user experience, but it isn't real time like DQ is. I have 2 DQ reports out of dozens.

You could read this article on triggering a Power BI refresh via Flow. That might be your solution. Power BI Pro licenses are limited to 8 automatic refreshes, but unlimited (I think?) manual refreshes.

[cleovii]

Thanks, Ed! If manual refreshes are really unlimited, that would be super helpful. I'll give it a look-see and update this thread with what I find.

[cleovii · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone! They ended up purchasing Premium, but I wanted to update you all with my findings.

The best option I came across was a blend of DQ and Import, where the DQ interacts with evolving data, and the import is strictly static information. This option would offset the heavy load of interacting with frequently refreshing information.

I hope this helps others!